French Football Club Paris Saint-Germain to Issue Own Digital Currency

One of France’s most celebrated football teams has announced that they will be launching their own digital asset. The token will give holders various perks including voting rights on some of decisions made by the club.

Paris Saint-Germain Become the Latest Professional Sports Club to Enter the Crypto Space

The bear market of 2018 might have temporarily stifled investor interest in the cryptocurrency industry, but that has not stopped big names from the world of sport flirting with the technology. The latest team to get involved with digital assets in some capacity is top division French football team Paris Saint-Germain.

According to a post by the Malta Blockchain Summit yesterday, the club plans to launch its own digital asset in the spring of 2019. The tokens will allow fans to vote on “cosmetic” decisions of the club. These will include the music played in the stadium, the colour of the team’s away shirts, and awards for stand out performances from the players, amongst others.

The fan tokens, as they are being referred to as, have been made possible by blockchain firm Socios.com. According to PSG’s main association officer, Marc Amstrong:

“Paris Saint-Germain is determined to leverage the opportunities that cryptocurrency can provide. This revolutionary technology will have an important impact on the club’s overall business strategy and the way we engage with our fan base.”

With the announcement, Paris Saint-Germain becomes the latest in a growing list of sporting franchises that are exploring blockchain and cryptocurrency technology in some way. Elsewhere in the world of professional football, the likes of Gibraltar FC made history earlier this year by becoming the first sports club to pay for its players using cryptocurrency.

Meanwhile, in the U.K., cryptocurrency trading platform eToro sponsored several Premier League teams this summer. The deals themselves were financed using Bitcoin exclusively. Finally, the Italian football club Rimini FC 1921 became the first team to be bought using cryptocurrency. Heritage Sport Holdings used the obscure cryptocurrency Quantocoin to make 25% of the payment.

It is not just football clubs that are becoming interested in the emerging digital asset economy though. The planet’s best known baseball league, MLB, has launched its own collectable trading game based on the Ethereum blockchain. The initiative is an effort to get younger people excited about the sport once again.

Sporting clubs are even getting interested in the mining side of the cryptocurrency industry. Ever-ready to embrace emerging technologies, the NBA’s Sacramento Kings announced in July that they will be turning part of their state-of-the-art stadium into a digital asset mining centre. The profits generated will go towards helping local charities.